What happens when you invite the whole world to join an online class?
As The Chronicle reported last year, a growing number of educators are giving that idea a try by offering free “massive open online courses,” or MOOC’s, to anyone who wants to learn. Today, that experimental idea gained some more traction in mainstream higher education. The University of Illinois at Springfield announced a new not-for-credit MOOC devoted to examining the state of online education and where e-learning is heading. Nearly 500 people from two dozen countries have registered so far, with 1,000 expected to sign up by the time the course begins next Monday.
The idea for the Springfield course grew out of a presentation called “The Open Future of Higher Education” delivered at a conference this spring by Ray Schroeder, director of Springfield’s Center for Online Learning, Research, and Service.
The MOOC was featured in an June 21, 2011, blog post by The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Read the post online
